


But You Keep Starving Your Heart

by DefaltManifesto



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Bruising, Caning, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Dom!Sasuke, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flogging, Hopeful Ending, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Masturbation, Overstimulation, Painplay, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Repression, Sub!Gaara, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 23:01:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13937289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: “And this is what? Breaking to heal again?”“If you want it to be."





	But You Keep Starving Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> There's a lot I could say about this fic. I've been working on it since November. It means a lot to me. I was going to extrapolate on why but I'm so emotionally exhausted from writing it I'm too lazy now lol. Comments are loved. Title from Drowning In The Sound by Amanda Palmer
> 
> Thanks to scepticallyopenminded and sublimediscordance for letting me screech about this for like five months straight.

[The Tumblr](http://defaltmanifesto.tumblr.com)

 

Sasuke knows pain. He’s taken what was given to him at a young age, shaped it, molded it, used it to survive and thrive as the physical and emotional agony of Orochimaru’s training tried to crush him the way the earth crushed stone into diamond. He takes that pain and makes himself stronger to go after his next goal. When that accomplishment just rips open the truth and pours more salt in his wounds, he crystallizes it into focus and gets stronger again. The world tries to tear him apart and he doesn’t patch himself up or fix what’s broken, instead letting the wounds bleed out the weakness so he can ascend higher.

But pain and anger are not the fuel for the long-lived. It devours its host, quick and hot. Sasuke always intended to go out burning bright, but now the war is over and Konoha is his home again and all of that pain? It’s made him strong but now he’s just a weapon with nothing to crush. It burned out all the emotions in him and left behind the body.

So he takes his newfound freedom and heads out into the world because what else is there to do?

 

-.-

 

Gaara knows little of pain. Well, that’s not accurate. He knows little of physical pain. Sometimes, in his dreams, he has flashes of memory of the One-Tail’s chakra being pulled out from him and it’s enough to have him dry heaving on the floor of his bedroom. Other than that, the only thing that comes close is the day he first experienced it when Sasuke drew blood from him during their fight. That memory only rears in his dreams too. Sharp, sudden, and terrifying.

Emotional aches and pains are something he’s starting to part with, though that’s almost harder to grapple with. He corresponds with Naruto regularly which helps with the fear of abandonment that he’s sure will never quite go away, and his siblings are always close enough that he can find them with ease. He begins to grow plants and that helps too. For so long, even after gaining acceptance, he’d only been useful through destroying, and there’s something healing about being able to nurture and create instead.

Physical pain remains a curiosity. The nightmares don’t deter him. He wants to explore the feeling, learn it, categorize it, turn it over in his mind, pick it apart and then let it rest. There’s no one to ask for help. His sand still, stubbornly, does not allow him to hurt himself. He could let someone else, but he’s not naïve enough to think something like this wouldn’t circulate. No one wanted a leader who found pain interesting.

So he wonders about it and tries to be content with the idea that he’ll never get the answer to his questions.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke is a virgin. He might be embarrassed by that fact if he had any friends. Well, he has friends, but he’s not about to talk to Naruto or Sakura about his sex life especially since it should be painfully obvious that the only thing he had time for was hatred. In that way…he’s still a child. Luckily, he can experience that embarrassment all on his own.

When he’d been younger, before Orochimaru, he’d had a few wet dreams. Then came the curse mark and whether it was from Orochimaru’s influence or his escalating frustration and hatred for his brother, his already low libido had vanished. Now, in a post-Itachi, post-war, post- _everything_ world it’s like his body is stretching out and catching up with everything he’s denied it. He feels hunger like he never had before. Even when he’d been training and honing his body and mind he hadn’t had cravings like this and the hunger never nagged at him. He comes in his sleep over dreams he doesn’t want to think too hard about.

He doesn’t jerk off until a little after his 18th birthday, about a year and a half after he started traveling. It’s a terrifying sensation. His body doesn’t know how to feel good, too used to pain and over-exertion. It’s sensory overload that leaves him gasping for breath and shaking and sick to his stomach. He decides then that there’s no point to it. What was the point in a sex drive when it left you feeling like that?

 

-.-

 

Gaara loses his virginity about a year after the war to Naruto. That’s not all that surprising. They’re not in love, but they love each other and Gaara doesn’t trust anyone else. Naruto’s enthusiastic but gentle, fingers exploring every inch of his skin until he can play Gaara’s body like a professional. They find each other for stolen days as they rebuild. It’s an escape from the hard work, an opportunity to heal through intimacy, and in those moments they don’t feel so alone.

It’s overwhelming at first, but Naruto’s a quick learner. He understands that Gaara’s body doesn’t know what to do with the sensations so they go slow. By the time they call off their arrangement, Gaara’s learned the pleasures of a gentle touch thoroughly. It’s just another thing to add to the list of things Naruto has taught him, and some days that thought still makes him emotional. He wonders where he’d be if he hadn’t had Naruto to teach him about love. About tenderness. About the emotional vulnerability that came with the simple brush of fingers on skin.

           

-.-

 

Sasuke doesn’t know how to feel much of anything. He’d been an emotional child, swinging between elation and anger and hatred with every minute. Once he became a genin, the needle hovered on anger more than anything else, and once he left to learn from Orochimaru well, then there was nothing but anger and deep loathing or a yawning maw of emptiness. He’s not sure if it was repression or if there was really nothing there to begin with.

He’s starting to think it was the latter. Everything makes him angry or furious. Any minor annoyance requires a slow count down from ten, an inconvenience several deep breaths, and even in moments where he laughs with a fellow traveler, the humor quickly turns back into irritation and the cycle continues. There’s nothing else there no matter how much he digs. But then, he is on his own. The only people who have a chance of making him feel something else are back in Konoha or scattered around in one of the other countries.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is. Whether repression or an inherent lack of ability to feel anything else, the end result is he’s alone with nothing useful to put into the world.

 

-.-

 

Gaara feels too much sometimes. It overwhelms it and he shuts down, shaking and mumbling to himself. One of the therapists in the health division who he sees on a semi-regular basis tells him it’s because for so long as a child, emotions resulted in something terrible. Kindness created fear, anger created distrust, and love…love created hatred from those he was supposed to trust most.

Now, he’s allowed to feel whatever he wants. There’s freedom there, but it scares him still. Perhaps he’ll never be comfortable with his emotions, not entirely, but it’s nice to love Naruto, his siblings, his friends, and not have that love turned against him or betrayed. It’s nice to enjoy a calm morning watering his plants and then meditating. It’s a simple thing, enjoyment.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke hates the desert. It dries out his skin and makes his throat ache. He hates that these things bother him, especially since he’s been through so much worse. The downside to not having a goal anymore is the physical and emotional toils of life wear him down and annoy him in ways he’d just not noticed for years. That more than anything makes him want to crawl back inside the shell of hatred and anger.

The thought alone was enough to make him want to laugh. Lose an arm, install a fake limb shockingly realistic and usable in its place, replace his eyes with his brother’s, drain his chakra to the point of death more times than he can count and he just keeps going. And now a minor inconvenience makes him want to hide. Feeling physical sensations is just too much. Perhaps something nicer wouldn’t be so difficult to grapple with, but then, he’s never known anything other than pain and discomfort, the memories of what it felt like to hug his parents or lean against his brother long gone and buried. But then, he hadn’t liked jacking off either and that was supposed to be a pleasurable sensation. Maybe he just wasn’t meant to feel anything at all.

 

-.-

 

Gaara loves the desert. It’s not just that he’s surrounded by sand which allows him to protect his people in a way other Kages can’t. He likes stretching out on the roof and feeling the sun on his skin and he likes the way the desert can call up a storm just as fierce as the ocean can. It reminds him of himself; tranquil but capable of raging.

He feels when Sasuke enters their lands. It’s a negativity that radiates out from his steps, through the sand, and up through the soles of his feet. For the first time in a long while, he has nightmares of bleeding out on the ground and unimaginable pain wracking his body without any source to fight against. The following morning, he sits on the railing of his balcony and stares at the sky as it shifts from pre-dawn gray to the muted reds, pinks, and yellows.

By the time the sun breaks above the cliffs, he’s drafted a summons message to strap to one of their hawks.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke is a loner, but he’s been alone for so long now that the invitation from Gaara is like a welcome respite. He fought Gaara, but there was less animosity between them. They may have fought, and Sasuke may have even tried to kill him, but there was nothing there tainted by hatred or a drive for vengeance. He’s never born ill will towards the man, not mistakenly or justifiably.

He remembers Gaara crying. He’d forgotten about that because at the time, he hadn’t been processing much of anything outside fighting, too cold and numb to care about anything else like what Gaara had tried to tell him. Now, the memory is like a punch to the gut. Something claws at his chest, something like feeling because he’d made Gaara of all people cry for him and what he’d become. Gaara, the person who had never felt pain and yet when he fought Sasuke, he’d bled. If anything, that should have made him hate Sasuke. Instead, he’d tried to show him mercy, tried to help him out of the darkness. He’s not sure what the hell to do with that knowledge.

He accepts the invitation and tries to ignore the apprehension twisting in his gut.

 

-.-

           

Gaara isn’t a loner anymore but that doesn’t mean he’s all that adept at reading a social situation. The years have taught him the rules of correct socializing so for the most part he doesn’t embarrass himself or his people but there’s no polite way to ask Sasuke for what he wants. They’re standing side by side on Gaara’s balcony when the words tumble out of him.

"You want me to hurt you,” Sasuke repeats.

"I’m curious,” Gaara says. “About the sensations.”

“And your instinct was to ask me,” Sasuke says, staring out over the village.

Gaara has a feeling he’s miss-stepped, and gravely so. He’s not sure how to fix it so he just makes a soft noise of assent instead. Sasuke nods and then looks at him with eyes not so different from all those years ago when he’d tried to make Sasuke come home.

“All I know of pain is how to torture someone,” he says.

"Maybe we can start small,” Gaara says. “I just want to know what it all feels like, and I can’t do that with someone I don’t trust.”

Sasuke’s lips twist into a parody of a smile. “Alright.”

 

-.-

 

Sasuke doesn’t like pain. He’s had more than enough of it in his life and he’s wreaked enough of it on other people to fill him up for a life time. It makes Gaara’s request feel like a betrayal even though he never could’ve known how such a thing would make Sasuke react and it wasn’t like Sasuke was about to tell him. His brain is more concerned with the concept of Gaara trusting him. He’s an ex-missing nin who tried to kill Gaara no less than three times. Either Gaara had no idea what trust meant or…he saw something in Sasuke that Sasuke himself couldn’t see.

He may be emotionally stunted but he has no desire to harm Gaara in any permanent way so he writes a list when he takes his dinner in his guest quarters of things he trusts himself to be able to do. Orochimaru had trained him well in that when he was younger, back before he grew the spine to refuse him. In his efforts to break Sasuke of his hesitation, he’d put punishment of his subordinates squarely on Sasuke’s thirteen-year-old shoulders. What he did to them he won’t do to Gaara. He’ll only satisfy his curiosity.

It bothers him though, that Sasuke was the first one Gaara thought of. He supposes he brought such a reputation on himself, especially in later years of the war. Still, apprehension eats at him. He wants to be more than that, wants to evolve from that old image. He just has no idea how.

 

-.-

 

Gaara likes pain more than he thought he would. The first thing Sasuke tries on him is a flogger. He has Gaara stand against the wall and takes it to his back with a steady rhythm that Gaara sinks into and revels in. The pain sings through him, heavy and warm and it overloads his brain until he’s shaking with it. He’s glad he lined the walls with his sand to keep the sound in because he can’t shut up once Sasuke gets to the fifth hit.

Sasuke stops right before Gaara asks, somehow knowing that he’s close to not being able to take it. He can’t quite bring himself to move though, brain too busy swimming in the endorphins that the pain gave him and he can’t help but wonder if that’s normal. Sasuke pries him away from the wall. He goes where Sasuke leads and sits straddling a chair backwards at Sasuke’s urging. A few moments later, a cool hand slicked with some sort of salve that start smoothing over the marks on his skin. By the time he’s done, Gaara’s head is much clearer and his dick is starting to harden.

“How did you know that I couldn’t take anymore?” he asks, voice rough.

“I learned to read it in body posture,” Sasuke says. “It’s how I knew I was close to getting what Orochimaru wanted out of someone.” He moves to sit across from Gaara, expression unreadable. “You take pain really well for someone not accustomed to it.”

Gaara’s still mulling over the first part of the sentence, something like guilt rearing up in him that he asked Sasuke to put skills he wasn’t proud of to use. “I was too absorbed in processing how it felt to be scared of it. Should I not have asked?”

Sasuke frowns. “I could’ve said no. It’s fine.”

Gaara thinks Sasuke might be lying but he’s not sure how to bring that up without making Sasuke run or lash out. Of course, he could be judging the Sasuke before him on past actions and that was doing him a disservice that so many had done to Gaara. Still, best not to push it now. He hoped.

Sasuke leaves and Gaara doesn’t even bother going to his bed or bathroom, instead undoing his zipper and turning around in the chair. He comes in a few short jerks, biting his lip. After, he feels a little guilty because honestly, he didn’t ask Sasuke for this because he thought it would get him off. Quite the opposite. He thought he’d hate it, but instead, he’s fascinated by the rush of endorphins it gives him. Perhaps, it’s because it’s a new sensation.

The lightest touch from Naruto when they’d first begun had him on the verge of coming. That had been embarrassing. He wonders if pain is much the same way, even if it were on the opposite side of the spectrum. He probably wasn’t supposed to enjoy pain, but it was the one sensation he’d always been denied and even after he lost Shukaku. The feeling had been rare. Maybe by the next time Sasuke tries something, the novelty will wear off and he won’t have such a reaction.

 

 

-.-

 

Sasuke doesn’t like pain, but inflicting it on someone else undeniably arouses him. He leaves Gaara’s room and barely makes it to his own before jacking off for the first time in months and coming to the though of Gaara biting his lip around a groan of pain. The orgasm is as unpleasant as before. His body recoils from the sensation and after, he lays and stares at the ceiling trying not to be repulsed by how his body reacted to what he’d done to Gaara and the way his body can’t seem to handle the simple act of masturbation.         

He wonders if, even though Itachi ripped Orochimaru from him and Yamato killed him again when he’d been revived, there’s something left of Orochimaru’s tainted energy within him. Or maybe he was born a sadist and is everything Itachi had tried to and failed to be.

When he thinks about it though, he has no real desire to hurt anyone intentionally. Part of what’s so arousing about it is that Gaara…wanted it and he took it and the way he’d relaxed under his hands when Sasuke had applied the salve to his skin…it all came together to make him feel like he’d done something good even if it was violent. Either way, it’s something he’ll have to tell Gaara. It’d be wrong, he thinks, to continue this when he’s getting something out of it that Gaara isn’t aware of, even if that something isn’t anything he really wants. He’s pretty sure he’d prefer to go the rest of his life without needing to masturbate.

Maybe he’s not as close to Orochimaru as he thought.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke doesn’t pride himself on much anymore, and that includes honesty. If he were honest with Naruto about how he felt, how he was angry and empty all at the same time, and about how sometimes he thought about just lying still on the ground until something came along to end him, he’d hurt Naruto. It’s not something he wants to do. He’s mostly numb but he’s pretty sure he cares about Naruto and Sakura, especially after how much they sacrificed for him. Even if he doesn’t, he’s supposed to and that’s reason enough to keep the truth to himself.

He mulls over what to tell Gaara as he takes his breakfast in the courtyard. There’s ANBU all around. He’s doubtful that Gaara ordered them to keep such a close eye on him so it’s likely the work of his overbearing siblings. He ignores the resulting frustration that idea causes.

To some degree, he doesn’t want to tell Gaara anything about the reaction he had to turning Gaara’s skin as red as his hair. It’s a matter of curiosity for Gaara and now for him as well. He wants, or maybe needs, to know why he reacts the way he does. More than anything, he wants confirmation that he’s not…something he doesn’t even want to name, not even to himself. Honesty would be best, but he can’t bring himself to be honest with Gaara when such a thing could end the arrangement before Sasuke really knows.

 

-.-

 

Gaara had little to be proud of in his early years, but honestly was one of the things he still has and remains proud of. There’s a little of his past self to cherish, and he clings to what there is with a childish obsession. It’s why when he has Sasuke follow him to his greenhouse, the only place he gets any privacy from the ANBU, he knows he has to tell him the truth even if it ends the arrangement. The last thing Sasuke needs is another person lying to him.

“We can speak plainly here in a way we can’t anywhere else except my bedroom,” Gaara says, watching as Sasuke examines one of his rare cacti. “I need to be blunt with you.”

Sasuke looks at him and instead of the unreadable look Gaara expects to see, he sees a panicked expression that schools into something guarded. It’s a curious reaction.

“I found what you did last night to be arousing,” Gaara continues. “I did not think I would. I was more curious as to how that sort of extreme pain would feel and while it was enlightening in that respect, I was caught by surprise by my other reaction. I wanted you to be aware of that. If I didn’t tell you before tonight, I feel as though I would be betraying your trust.”

He expects Sasuke to say he’s no longer interested, or maybe that he doesn’t mind. What he gets instead is Sasuke staring at him with side eyes as he breaths faster and faster, hand clenching down hard on the wood fencing lining Gaara’s table garden. Gaara’s gone through enough panic attacks to know what he’s triggered. He reaches out, keeping his motions slow, and grabs Sasuke’s hand. Sasuke flinches away and it hurts more than Gaara wants to admit to himself but it’s not something he’d hold against him.

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke says, then pauses as he takes a deep breath.

Before his eyes, Gaara watches the panic harden into an expression he wishes wasn’t so familiar. Sasuke’s lips quirk up into a small half smile.

“It’s just…you’re a good person, Gaara,” Sasuke says. “And I’m not.”

“Why would you say that?” Gaara asks.

Sasuke’s pupils dilate again but his breathing stays steady. “I feel the same way as you, but I wasn’t going to say anything because I’m…”

Gaara considers the words for a moment before shaking his head. “I understand. It’s not something I wanted to admit either. But if we both enjoy it, I see no reason not to continue this arrangement despite it not turning out as expected. If you’re uncomfortable with it, I’m fine breaking this off.”

Sasuke’s expression does something complicated then that Gaara can’t parse out.

“I need time to think,” Sasuke says, voice strained and gaze pointedly to the side.

“Right,” Gaara says. “If you wish to leave the city though, I would like if you said goodbye first. I feel as though I’ve made a big mistake here and that’s not what I wanted to happen.”

Sasuke nods and leaves before Gaara can say anything else.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke isn’t a coward. He’s dealt with things that would have most people flinging themselves off the nearest cliff and faced the world’s most powerful enemies without a flinch of fear, instead of just a desire to survive and be the last one standing. But he is terrified of talking to Gaara again. The man had stated things, personal things, so plainly and matter of factly that it shocked him because those same things Sasuke wanted to cover up with lies and stone-faced expressions. The thought that he had been about to lie when Gaara had taken the leap to be honest disgusts him. It solidifies the idea that there’s something wrong with him.

Of course, that means that despite his truthfulness that something was wrong with Gaara too. Maybe there had been in the past. No, he definitely had something wrong with him then. But unlike Sasuke, he’d adjusted well to life even if he had some odd quirks, and despite what he’d confessed, Sasuke found it impossible to think he was bad for liking the pain. Gaara wasn’t sadistic, not anymore. Of course, not having a tailed demon inside probably helped but from what he’d learned even before then Gaara had changed.

All the thoughts are too messy to try and articulate out loud. It feels childish, but he settles on a letter instead in hopes that he can make Gaara understand his inner conflict. It’s the first time he’s ever really tried to do so. He hopes that makes him seem like less of a coward.

 

-.-

 

Gaara, by the general definition, supposes he might be a coward. He fears for his people. He fears for the fragile peace their world has found, and he fears his own desire to be honest because the thought of pushing people away again terrifies him. Sasuke hands him a letter after an awkward dinner. It sits on his desk in his bedroom, apprehension and fear almost insurmountable. After a great deal of procrastinating he finally sits down and unfolds the letter.

_-I’m no good at talking about these things so I figured writing would help. I’m not weirded out by you finding the pain arousing. Even when I was meant to torture or punish Orochimaru’s servants, some would find arousal although in those situations it wasn’t something they or I wanted to happen.-_

Gaara sets the letter down, stomach rolling. He can see why Sasuke would be averse to honesty when the truth of what Orochimaru put him through was so vile. A child being forced to torture, to see men break apart by their body’s natural reaction fear, wasn’t something many wished to hear about. If he’d known, Gaara isn’t sure he’d have asked Sasuke to assist him in sating his curiosity.

_-I think that’s why I’m disgusted by my own reaction to what I did to you. Orochimaru tried to make me a sadist like him and at the Kage summit I was exactly that, but even then it had been more out of survival than anything else. If I wasn’t indifferent or if I didn’t enjoy the pain I delivered to those I hated I don’t think I could’ve handled the truth of what they’d taken from me. I had thought after everything that’s happened I had gotten away from that darkness. Last night was a shock because I realized I hadn’t. You gave me honesty and I’m trying to return the favor. If my history disgusts you, I understand and don’t want you to feel obligated to continue._

_All that said, I would like to continue this with you. I want to know why I like giving someone who is willing pain, and I want to figure out if I’m capable of feeling genuine pleasure. If you are interested in continuing, I would like to see how you handle a cane tonight.-_

Gaara pauses for a few minutes and writes his reply.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke worries about being judged still. It’s never over anything important. He doesn’t care that most people think he’s still a heartless killer, or that he still secretly wishes to bring about the ruin of Konoha. He knows he doesn’t, and Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura all know he doesn’t, and that’s all that really matters. But the smaller things? He’d rather not be known for those, which is why he finds himself in a disguise as he tours a sex shop for canes with the weight and size he’s comfortable with. The last thing he needs to get back to Naruto is that he’s in another country buying sex toys and books.

The books are for the newest element. This isn’t just about letting Gaara learn what different types of pain feel like. It’s treading into an area Sasuke knows little of. Consensual beatings aren’t something he’s ever done, though he knows such a thing exists and is fairly common among active ninjas. He wants to be sure he has the basics down before he and Gaara continue. He’ll be damned if he’s anything like his mentors.

 

-.-

 

Gaara stopped caring about being judged for things years ago. It works to his advantage because it means he can make all the noise he feels he needs to as Sasuke lays the sixth hit onto his ass. It’s the first of the three types of canes and it has a bite to it that makes him twitch and bite at his pillow to muffle his screaming. It’s sharp and bright and nothing like the flogger. It still makes his cock ache with how hard he is and he has a feeling that is going to be one thing all types of pain have in common with him when administered like this.

The next three come quick, one on his thighs and another two on his ass. Sasuke waits as Gaara rides out the sensations, each one reaching his brain slower than the last as he sinks into the mattress.

“One more,” Sasuke says. “I’m going to hit you here three times tonight, one with each cane, unless you say otherwise. It’s going to be the most painful spot.”

Gaara nods his assent and forces himself to take a deep breath and relax. He has enough training to know tensing up will hurt him more and put him at risk for damage that isn’t anywhere close to fun. Sasuke rests the slim cane against the small strip of skin where his thighs meet his ass, a warning that Gaara appreciates even though it makes him want to tense back up all over again. The hit comes and for the briefest of seconds he feels nothing. Then the bite comes, making him gasp and squirm in some vain attempt to get away from it even as pleasure chases after it.

“I’ll give you a breather and we’ll move on to the next. You’ll have to roll on your back though because these ones will go on the top of your thighs,” Sasuke says, his voice firm.

Gaara latches onto his voice and nods again. It’s only five hits and he’s already so overwhelmed. He’s not sure how he’s going to take ten more but with Sasuke’s steady hand and voice leading the way, he knows he will.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke can’t remember what affection feels like, not really. He remembers what he felt for Naruto and Sakura, but with time and distance and trauma between then and now, he can only recall a shadow of the feeling. It takes him by surprise when a rush of it hits him as he applies the cooling ointment to the red marks which are quickly darkening to bruises over the tops of Gaara’s thighs; ten neat little lines that are stark against the pale flesh. He lists into Sasuke and when he looks up at him it’s with such trust in his eyes that Sasuke wants to run away, but he doesn’t dare. He knows what a caning feels like. He didn’t like it, but Gaara did, and he doesn’t think it matters because either way what they did was intense.

“You’re hard,” Gaara says.

Sasuke grimaces and wipes his hands on a damp wash cloth before tossing it in the general direction of the bathroom. “I don’t…you don’t have to do anything about it.”

Gaara frowns and Sasuke can tell that he’s still on the endorphin high because of how long he stays quiet as he thinks. “But what if I want to?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Sasuke says. “I…find coming to be unpleasant.”

“That makes no sense,” Gaara says in a flat tone. “But okay.”

Sasuke sighs. “Get up and bend over the bed for me so I can get the rest of your marks.”

“Mmm.”

 

-.-

 

Gaara knows this is more than affection, and he doesn’t think he’s in love but by the third night they spend together, he definitely feels something more for Sasuke. It’s admiration first and foremost. Under that though is something deeper, a longing and desire to make Sasuke feel the way Sasuke makes him feel. He can’t understand why Sasuke is willing to engage in an act they’ve both acknowledged is sexual but is so unwilling to let him give Sasuke the relief he offers Gaara.

“You made me come last night,” Gaara says as Sasuke pulls a length of soft rope out of his pack and sets it on the table. “Can I…do the same for you? I feel as though this is off-balance.”

“I don’t enjoy it,” Sasuke says. He leans back against the table and folds his arms across his chest. “It’s too much.”

Gaara doesn’t understand but he wants to. He thinks at its core, that’s what love is whether it’s platonic or romantic. It’s the desire to understand another person. Whether Sasuke likes it or not, he’s going to discover what Sasuke means.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke’s first kiss is an impulsive decision. He and Gaara are eating dinner before their session. Tonight, he was going to tie Gaara up and use his hands to leave bruises just by squeezing and gripping various areas, an idea he got when Gaara had told him that he liked the intimacy of the pain almost more than the pain itself.

They’re stacking the plates side by side when their shoulders brush. Sasuke glances at him out of habit and Gaara looks right back at him and for a moment, it’s like they’re both frozen as their eyes meet. Maybe he moves, maybe though both do, but the end result is their lips pressing together and Gaara’s hands twisting through his hair. He can barely breath between their kisses. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing but he wants it to continue because it feels amazing.

It’s only until they stumble their way to Gaara’s bed and he starts tugging at Sasuke’s clothes that a feeling like cold water washes over him. He jerks away and the knowledge that he’s not like Gaara, not like a regular person, hits him hard because he knows he can’t give Gaara what he wants when he’s fucked up the way he is.

“I…” he starts.

“Don’t want to come, I know,” Gaara says. “I won’t make you.”

Sasuke hesitates but goes when Gaara tugs him back down. “Promise?” He feels like a child, asking for something like that.

“I promise.”

 

-.-

 

Gaara’s first kiss was with Naruto, but Naruto’s the last thing on his mind. All he cares about right now is the way Sasuke kisses like he’s dying and this is his last chance to experience it. He twists his hands and gasps into the kiss when Sasuke doesn’t move so instead his muscles grind against bone, worsening the bruises Sasuke left the night before. After a moment, he twists again, cock hardening as pain sparks through him again.

He comes grinding up against Sasuke through their clothes. Sasuke eases back from the kiss, then presses in again just as eager and Gaara…he can see so much of himself in the man above him, the desperate need to touch and keep touching after too long without anything. The grip on his wrists loosens and Gaara tugs free so he can frame Sasuke’s face in his hands. A strained noise escapes Sasuke between kisses and he shakes above him, trembling harder and harder until they’re barely kissing.

“Sasuke?” he asks, opening his eyes.

Sasuke presses their foreheads together but keeps his eyes shut tight. Gaara wishes he could see them so he could have some idea of what was going through his mind, but then, he’s not the best at reading emotions on a good day.

“Just…hold me please,” Sasuke says, settling heavy and warm on top of him.

Gaara does as he asks.

 

-.-

 

Sasuke doesn’t know what to do with gentleness. Gaara teaches him. Sasuke’s floggers and canes go in the back of Gaara’s closet and then Gaara takes him to bed and picks him apart with just his fingers. Sasuke’s breath shudders as Gaara trails fingers down his chest, feather-light. True to his promise, Gaara doesn’t seem focused at all on the sexual nature, instead returning the favor of teaching him a new sensation without an ulterior motive.

Gaara’s fingers skate along his waist to his hips and Sasuke jerks, an unpleasant feeling skittering along his skin and down his spine. He can’t help the way his arms cross, blunt nails sinking into his shoulders and biceps as he tries to chase away the unfamiliar feeling with something he knows and is comfortable with. A noise escapes him, pathetic and helpless. Gaara’s fingers leave him and he goes limp on the bed, panting for breath as the sensations flee. He’s bitten red marks into his arms.

"It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Gaara asks.

Sasuke forces himself to meet his eyes, but there’s no pity there like he’d feared. Just understanding. “I just…I don’t…what is it?”

Gaara frowns and places the fingers of one hand on Sasuke’s stomach, sliding them out until his palm is flat against his navel. “It’s touch. Everyone is so used to it, they’ve never bothered to explain the sensation. They spend their whole lives immersed in it, knowing it, but you and I…it’s more than that. Touch is vulnerability. It hurts in its own way even when it’s just this.”

There’s tears at the corners of his eyes as Gaara’s hand slides up his chest and for a moment, he expects, no _wishes_ , it would curl around his throat and ground him but instead, it just slips to the side to skate over his shoulder and down his arm again. Sasuke presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, a sobbing gasp for breath escaping him as Gaara’s fingers trail back down his chest and lift off of him.

He feels like he’s been laid bare, ripped open and exposed by a simple touch and how is it _this_ of all things that have gotten to him, overwhelmed him? He’s dealt with so much, betrayal after betrayal, battle after battle, he’s dragged himself into the realm of the living, surgically removed his emotions to do what needed to be done, tried to end the world only to save it, and it’s _this_ that gets him. It’s light fingers against his skin with no intention to hurt or harm, soothe or pleasure. It’s just this, just them, and it’s too much.

“Sasuke…oh…I’m so sorry Sasuke…”

Gaara knows gentleness well through Naruto and later his family. He knows the gentle touch of a lover and the friendly brush of shoulders of a comrade and the tight hug of a sibling. It had been overwhelming at first but it hadn’t cracked him apart like this. Sasuke shakes against him, tears soaking his face as his fingers twist in the cloth of Gaara’s shirt. If he’d known he’d get such a reaction…well, he’s not sure what he would have done differently. They all have their breaking points.

And it appears Sasuke has found his.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, one hand twisting in Sasuke’s hair and guiding him to tuck his face against Gaara’s neck. More than sorry, he’s angry. He’s furious that the world robbed Sasuke of any sense of safety, any ability to be vulnerable enough to truly feel. He’d come to terms with his own trauma, his own mistakes, long ago. But Sasuke…for him, it’d just built. And built.

And with just a few simple touches, Gaara had cracked his carefully constructed walls without even meaning too.

So he holds Sasuke as tight as he can and lets him grieve for the first time.

It’s not just grief though. Sasuke grieved for his parents when they’d been murdered, but no one had cared. They looked at him with pity and then disdain and later disgust. No one saw his grief for what it was or reached out a hand. No one _saw_ him. Gaara sees him.

Maybe that’s what it was. It wasn’t the soft touches against his skin, but the respect and care behind it, the desire to teach and provide a shelter where he could feel something he hadn’t been allowed to. His emotions hadn’t been burned away like he’d thought, just buried and covered up. And Gaara…Gaara had exposed himself first, given Sasuke a tool to use against him if he wished. He’d trusted him the way no one else ever had. Everyone he knew was just waiting for the day he’d finally lose it but Gaara had looked at him and gave him a weapon to use to hurt and asked him not to, not in the ways that mattered.  

It’d only made sense for Sasuke to expose himself in turn and before either of them had realized, Gaara had brushed aside his barriers and exposed what he’d hidden so deep he’d forgotten it was there.

“I can’t…” Sasuke says, his voice a rasp. His eyes burn and his throat feels raw.

“Yes you can,” Gaara says, because he knows what Sasuke’s saying. He knows what it’s like to want to give up. “You’re going to be fine.”

“How do you know?” Sasuke asks.

“It’s like a broken bone,” Gaara says. “If you don’t set it right, it can’t heal. You just have to break it again and set it properly so it can heal the right way.”

Sasuke wants to scoff, but that’s the instinctive need to cheapen the moment so he doesn’t. “And this is what? Breaking to heal again?”

“If you want it to be,” Gaara says, stroking a hand down his back. “I’ll help you.”

“Will you?” Sasuke means for the words to come out gruff, hostile. Instead, they come out like a plea.

_Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t take advantage of my pain. Please._

“Yes. I’ll help. I promise.”

 

-.-

 

They know pain. They know gentleness. And they know acceptance too.

 


End file.
